Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent to also have printed in the Record the names of the members of the Iran-Contra select committee.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank Senator Enzi for this opportunity, and in fact there is a Federal moratorium that prohibits State taxes on access to the Internet. I was in the middle of that debate several years ago, and when the Marketplace Fairness Act is enacted that ban will still be there. In other words, today there is a Federal ban on Internet access taxes, and after this law passes, there will continue to be a ban on Internet access taxes. This issue is not about taxing the Internet, it is about the collection of State sales and use taxes that are already owed. The complexities raised by our critics are unfounded, and I would like to ask Senator Durbin what his thoughts are on these claims.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, we have an opportunity to vote today on an important piece of States rights legislation--at least that is the way I look at it as a former Governor of Tennessee. Here is what the legislation does. It is called the Marketplace Fairness Act. There are many reasons to support it, but the reason I like it is because it gives Governors and legislators the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they can require out-of-State sellers to do the same thing in-state sellers are required to do; that is, to collect the sales tax already owed. Let me say that again. This legislation is States rights legislation. It allows Governors and legislators in Maine or Tennessee or wherever-- Illinois--to decide for themselves whether they want to require out-of- State sellers to do the same thing in-state sellers already do, which is to collect the sales tax that is already owed when something is sold. That is it. Before I went back to Tennessee, some people here were saying: We don't trust the States to make this decision. I think I know the answer to that from Tennesseans. I have spent the last week going from one end of our State to the other. Everywhere I have gone, I have asked a question. I said: There are some people in Washington who said they trust Washington to make a decision more than they trust Governor Haslam and Speaker Harwell, Lieutenant Governor Ramsey, and the Tennessee Legislature to decide what to do about taxes. The last time I checked, Tennessee had an AAA bond rating, no State road debt, one of the lowest tax rates in the country, and was named the second freest State in the country. And the last time I checked, Washington, DC, was running up $1 trillion of debt and more every year. Nobody in Tennessee trusts Washington more than the Governor and State legislature to decide what to do about taxes, particularly when it comes to whether we are collecting a tax that is already owed. This is such an obvious piece of legislation that many of the opponents have resorted to interesting arguments, let's say, in opposition to it. It has been said that the bill should have gone through committee. Well, it went to committee, but the chairman--a very respected Member of this body--doesn't like the bill, so he didn't report it to the floor. So that is why it didn't get out of committee. They have said it should have more amendments. All of us, particularly on our side of the aisle--we are in the minority--would like to have as many amendments as we can. But there is one reason this bill didn't have amendments, and that is because opponents to the bill objected to every single amendment, every single one, even amendments they support. Senator Pryor and Senator Blunt offered a 10-year extension of the moratorium on Internet access taxes, and the Senator from Oregon objected to that even though he wrote the original act. Some have suggested that what we are talking about is a tax on the Internet, but every Senator knows there is a law against a tax on the Internet. Some have said: Well, it is a new tax. But of course it is not. It is an existing tax. One of my colleagues over here said that the only thing he hates worse than a tax is somebody who doesn't pay a tax that is owed. This is a tax that everybody owes that only some people pay. What we are trying to say to the Governor of Maine or to the Governor of Tennessee or to the Governor of Illinois is this: You can decide for yourselves, without playing ``Mother May I'' to Washington, DC, whether a State wants to treat some taxpayers one way and some another way, some businesses one way and some businesses another way. Then there are some who say it is too complicated. Well, this is how complicated it is. If I order ingredients to make ice cream over the Internet from Williams-Sonoma, I put in my name, my address, and my ZIP Code, and the software figures out the sales tax, collects it, and sends it to the State of Tennessee, how hard is that? I guess the complete answer to that is that a majority of Internet sales today collect the sales tax that is owed. If it is so hard, how are they doing that? Let me say that again. A majority of the retailers that sell over the Internet today collect the sales tax when it is owed using the software that is as simple as looking up the weather on a person's computer. I look up the weather in Maryville, TN. I type in my ZIP Code, and I type in ``weather,'' and it tells me the weather. That is about how easy this is. A majority of the retailers that sell over the Internet today collect the sales tax when they make the sale, so it can't be not only impossible to do, but it is not hard to do. Then there are some who say conservatives aren't for this. One of the leading proponents of this legislation is the chairman of the American Conservative Union, Al Cardenas. He sent out an e-mail last week, and he sent out another one today. Dear Senator: As you continue work next week on the Marketplace Fairness Act, I would like to call your attention to what conservatives are saying about this issue. They recognize as I do that it is not the role of government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace by requiring brick and mortar stores to charge a sales tax while exempting Internet sales. Sincerely, Al Cardenas, Chairman, American Conservative Union. He included in his e-mail--I received this e-mail--the comments of Charles Krauthammer, a conservative if there ever was one. The real issue here is the fairness argument--that if you're an old-fashioned store, you have to have your customers and you pay the sales tax and online you don't . . . So I think you want to have something that will level the playing field. You can do it one of two ways. You abolish all sales tax for real stores and nobody pays. Or you get the Internet people to pay the sales tax as well. I think the second one is the only way to do it, obviously. Representative Paul Ryan--he was home this past week too. He was in Janesville, WI. He is a pretty good conservative, last time I checked. I don't go around making a list of who is a good conservative and who is a bad one. I just think most people in America think of Paul Ryan as a conservative, just as the chairman of the American Conservation Union does. Representative Paul Ryan: To me, I think the concept is right . . . It's only fair that the local brick-and-mortar retailer be treated the same as the big-box online sales company out-of-State. Lest one think the chairman of the American Conservative Union and Charles Krauthammer and Paul Ryan are all on another planet somewhere, here are a few other conservatives who agree with him: William F. Buckley before he died wrote extensively about this; Republican Governors Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, Robert Bentley, Paul LePage, Bill Haslam, Butch Otter, Terry Branstad, Rick Snyder, Mike Pence, Tom Corbett, and Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota. This is common sense. This is fairness. This is States rights. For the life of me, as a former Governor, I do not understand how Congress can say to the conservative Republican Governor of Tennessee, the conservative Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee, to the conservative supermajority Republican legislature: You have to play ``Mother May I'' with Washington, DC. We don't trust you to make decisions about your own tax policy. We think Washington does a better job. That is laughable. That is just laughable. What we are doing with this bill--and I will conclude with this--is very simple. It is two words: States rights. It allows our State of Tennessee, our Governor and legislature, to make a decision: Will they decide to require out-of-State sellers to do the very same thing they require in-state sellers to do; that is, collect the sales tax when they sell an item and remit it to the State government? It is a tax that is already owed. It is not a tax on the Internet. It is a tax some people are paying and other people aren't even though they owe it. It discriminates against mom and pop small businesses. This bill only applies to large retailers--those that sell more than $1 million in remote sales each year. To the charge that it is too complicated, how could it be too complicated if a majority of Internet sales being made today already collect the sales tax? All we are saying is that the Governor and the legislature may wish to say to all taxpayers: If you owe the tax, you are going to need to pay it, and if you pay it, we can lower the tax rate for everybody in this State. I thank Senator Durbin and Senator Enzi for their leadership and bipartisan support. I regret that we didn't have more amendments, but the opponents used as their tactic to try to kill the bill--which I hope won't be successful--their right to object to every amendment. We can't do much about that. So after the bill passes, which I hope it does tonight, the House will consider it, and I am sure they will come up with their version of the bill, and we can go to conference and we can pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, a States rights bill that, in my view, is exactly what conservatives hope would happen. I thank the Chair.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask I be notified when I have consumed 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from North Dakota on 20 years of work on this issue, Senator Enzi for 11 years of tireless work here, and Senator Durbin for his effective advocacy. I will make four quick points. The Senator from Texas said reinvigorating the economy should be the No. 1 priority for Federal and State leaders. That is precisely the first sentence of the column of economist Art Laffer in the Wall Street Journal where he says: States can cut their income tax rates if web vendors collect the sales taxes that are legally due. In other words, if you want economic growth, vote for the Marketplace Fairness Act. No. 2, the idea that this is too complex to do--more than half of the sales now made on the Internet are by retailers that collect the tax when it is sold. It is a tax that is already owed, so how can it be too complex for anybody else to do? It is already being done. So that is specious. No. 3, it has been said this should have gone to committee. It did. It just never came out of committee because the chairman, and I say that with great respect, did not want it to. It should have had amendments. Yes, it should have had amendments. Why didn't it have amendments? Because the opponents to the bill resorted to objecting to every single amendment. Finally, I say this to my Republican colleagues: This is a conservative bill. I just mentioned Mr. Laffer. I read this earlier, but I want to read it again. The comments of the chairman of the American Conservative Union, Al Cardenas: Dear Senators, you continue work next week on the Marketplace Fairness Act. I would like to call to your attention what conservatives are saying about the issue. They recognize, as I do, it is not the role of government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace by requiring brick and mortar stores to charge a sales tax while exempting Internet sales. He then lists the comments of Charles Krauthammer favoring the idea, Representative Paul Ryan favoring the idea, and, of course, as we know, William F. Buckley did before he died. Many Governors do. This is an idea for conservatives and for our country. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, 3 times Senators have voted, either with 74 or 75 votes, in favor of this legislation--a majority of Democratic Senators and a majority of Republican Senators. On Monday we were ready for amendments, but the small group of Senators who oppose it objected. On Tuesday we asked to have time given back so we could begin amendments. There was an objection. On Wednesday the Senator from Arkansas asked for a 10-year moratorium on Internet taxes, and there was an objection. And we are ready today, as we will see. Sometimes we Republicans feel as though Democrats keep us from offering amendments. Whether that is ever true, this is different. In this case, Democrats and Republicans--a small group--are blocking the majority of us, Democrats and Republicans, who want to go forward with the bill and who have been ready to consider amendments since Monday. We respect the points of view of those 24 or 25 Senators who disagree with us, but with 3 votes of 74, 75 votes, can we not have our amendments, bring this to a conclusion, send it to the House of Representatives, and let it go through the process it needs to go through? So this is different. This is both sides--a small group--blocking amendments the large majority on each side wants to move forward with. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment by the Senators from Maine. I think it makes a lot of sense. It is symbolic too. Here we have a bipartisan amendment, we have a Republican Senator and an Independent Senator. The Independent Senator is a former Governor, as I once was. The reason I support the amendment is because it gives more time for anybody who might be affected by this amendment to adjust to it. That is never a bad idea--almost never a bad idea in the Senate. It gets us to our goal a few months later than we had thought. It makes sure those who might be affected can adjust. Of course, many people who call my office are surprised to learn that it does not affect anyone unless they have revenues of more than $1 million a year. So about 99 percent of people who sell things online or in catalogs are not affected. Of course, it does not affect Internet taxes; we have a law against Internet taxes. In fact, another bipartisan amendment by the Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from Missouri was to extend the 10-year moratorium on Internet taxes. That was objected to. The Collins-King amendment is imminently reasonable. I think it strengthens the bill. It is offered in a good spirit. Some may wish to go faster, but I think it is sensible and reasonable. I fully support it. I would reiterate that we were ready to accept amendments on Monday, but there was an objection--not a partisan objection but by Democrats and Republicans, a small number. We were ready on Tuesday to go ahead with amendments, but there was an objection, a bipartisan objection to going forward. We were ready on Wednesday with a bipartisan proposal to put on the 10-year extension of the Internet tax, but there was an objection. This is like--I have used this before, but this is like joining the Grand Old Opry and not being allowed to sing. This is what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to bring up these bills, consider reasonable amendments, and vote on them. We are at noon on Thursday. We have not been allowed to do what we could have finished on Tuesday. So I greatly respect the Senators on the other side. I know their feelings; we have strong feelings too. As a former Governor, I do not think it is any of Washington's business to continue to keep us from making decisions about our own taxes and tax structures. Some people say they do not trust the States. Most of the people in my State do not trust Washington to make decisions about spending. We do a heck of a lot better job of making decisions about taxes and spending and collections than people do here. So we pretty well made up our minds. Three times now we have had 74, 75 votes for this bill. We are ready to proceed. We have several amendments that have been filed, some by those who oppose the bill. That is fine. Bring them up. Let's vote on them. They may make good sense, just like this amendment makes good sense. So I thank the Senators from Maine for being constructive, for making a commonsense proposal to the bill. I support it. I hope that very soon we can debate it and vote on it and finish this legislation.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, first let me join the Senator from Maine in expressing to the Senator from Montana my regret that he is retiring. He has had a long and distinguished career here, and I have enjoyed working with him and look forward to working with him the rest of this year and next year. He has a history of independent thinking and working across party lines, which is valuable in the Senate. On the point the Senator from Maine made--and I see the Senator from Montana may want to say something, so I will be brief. The bill as proposed, the Marketplace Fairness Act, the pending act, has a 6-month implementation period. This would add 6 months to that so there would be a total of a year for implementation of the bill. This is a reasonable period of time. As far as the bill going to Finance Committee, it has been in the Finance Committee. Nothing would have pleased the sponsor of the bill more than for the chairman and other members of the committee to bring the bill up, mark it up, and send it to the floor, but they didn't do that. As Senator Collins said, Senator Enzi has been introducing different bills for the last decade or so. But he introduced this very basic bill, about 11 or 12 pages, S. 1832, on November 9, 2011. It was referred to the Finance Committee. In April of 2012 there was a Finance Committee hearing on State and local tax issues, including the Marketplace Fairness Act. The Senator from Montana referred to that in his remarks the other day, so there was some other hearing on this very bill in April of 2012. That is a year ago. Then the Senate Commerce Committee in August held a full hearing on this bill involving many Senators with a lot of testimony, and I was there. It is certainly arguable that the Commerce Committee is at least as involved in this issue as the Finance Committee, because while the Parliamentarian has sent it to the Finance Committee, it has nothing to do with the Tax Code, zero. In any event, that is where it has been. In this Congress, the Marketplace Fairness Act was introduced, this very 11-page bill, in the second month of this year and referred to the Finance Committee. Sixteen Senators have asked for it to be heard and marked up. It is certainly the prerogative of the chairman to decide in a busy committee what he has time to do and not to do. It certainly seemed to everyone that the Finance Committee had become a dungeon for the bill and not a place where it was likely to ever come out. I believe that is exactly why rule XIV is in the Senate rules, to allow the majority leader to take a bill, bypass the committee, and bring it to the floor. One that has had this much thought, this much consideration, is an excellent candidate for that. The cure for that, it seems to me, is to take these amendments and work them through, consider them on the floor, debate them, vote them, and continue the process. Send the bill to the House and let the House do what it will, have a conference if it is necessary. There are plenty of opportunities to deal with the bill. The point is the Finance Committee ought to have the bill. The Finance Committee has had the bill. The Finance Committee wouldn't act on the bill. Now we are past the point of sending it back to the Finance Committee. It is before us. It has votes of 74 or 75 Members of the Senate. It has the majority of each side. We have been ready ever since Monday to consider the amendments that have been offered to the bill by both proponents and opponents of the legislation. I would hope the Senators who oppose the bill will not object to the amendments but will participate in the process and allow us to move forward on the bill.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I know the Senator from Louisiana is coming. When he comes, I will be through. I say to the Senator from Wyoming who just said that apparently there is an intention to object to any amendment, just to review, we started Monday. We could have started amendments Monday if there were no objection, but there were objections, bipartisan objection. On Tuesday we said that instead of going the full 30 hours of debate, let's give the time back and let's start the amendments. Bipartisan objection. On Wednesday we brought up the bipartisan proposal of Senator Blunt and Senator Pryor to extend the moratorium on the Internet tax. There is already a moratorium on taxing the Internet. You cannot have it. That is the law. We were going to extend it for 10 years. Objection. Then today Senator Collins and Senator King say: Instead of implementing this in 6 months, let's do it in a year. Objection. If it continues this way--and I say to the Senator from Wyoming, this is the way I figure the procedure--if there is no consent, always objection to any amendment from both a few Republicans and a few Democrats, then we will have a vote on cloture tomorrow. That would be tomorrow afternoon, I guess--tomorrow morning. Probably for the fourth time, 74 or 75 of us will vote for the Marketplace Fairness Act. Then we will stay here until Saturday afternoon for the full 30 hours, and we will have a vote on the two amendments and final passage. That will be Saturday afternoon. And probably another 74 or 75 votes for that, I hope. That is what will happen if a few Democrats and a few Republicans continue to say: No amendments. I want to make sure no one on our side of the aisle stands up and says they, the Democrats, are blocking amendments, because they are not. Most Democrats and most Republicans want to offer and vote on amendments. A few Democrats and a few Republicans say no. I believe that is where we are procedurally, if that persists. I completely respect the point of view of other Senators. I never question a Senator's vote. That is his or her prerogative, and it is their prerogative to keep us here until Saturday afternoon if that is what they wish to do. But that is not really a very good way for the Senate to work when we have three-fourths of us, a majority on both sides of the aisle, who are for something and we are ready to move through it with amendments and improvements and debates. This is not a good procedure, but it is procedure. This is the season for parades in Tennessee. On weekends and Fridays, I go home. I have a rule of thumb: Walk in parades. I put on my red- and-black plaid shirt that I walked across Tennessee in. I walked in the Saint Patrick's Day parade in Erin. I walked in the Mule Day parade in Columbia--100,000 people there, lots of mules there. I always try to walk at the front of the Mule Day parade for obvious reasons. And tomorrow I was looking forward to walking in the parade at the Paris Fish Fry. But if we continue to object to every amendment to this bill, I will not get to walk in the Paris Fish Fry tomorrow, but we will pass the bill on Saturday, and I suspect we will pass it with 74 to 75 votes. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to engage the Senator from North Dakota, if I may, in a colloquy for a few minutes on the subject, so we may speak through the Chair to each other.

Mr. ALEXANDER. The Senator from Montana has raised a good question about audits. Let me say to the Senator from North Dakota, I wish to paint a picture, and I wish to ask the Senator from North Dakota to help me because she may be one of the newer Members of this body, but she knows more about this subject than most of us put together because of her experience, with all respect to all the Senators already here in the Senate. I wish to paint a picture of what would happen if we don't act. We are talking about audits. We are talking about businesses. Let's think about what we are talking about. I want to look to Washington from Nashville, TN, or from some other State capital--the requests that States are making of us is that if I am a Governor of Tennessee or a legislature, I want to be able to make the decision myself as a sovereign State about whether people who sell in our State are treated in the same way. A person may be a catalog seller or an Internet seller or a brick- and-mortar seller, but if an entity is going to sell in our State and we have decided we are going to have a sales tax instead of an income tax, if we require the local business to collect the tax, we are going to require everybody who sells there to collect the tax. If an entity wants to sell in our State, that is what they need to do. If they want to drive in our State, they follow our speed limit. They follow our criminal laws. If one lives in our State, they pay our income tax. If someone sells in our State, wherever they are in the world, we want them to collect the tax and send it to us. That is what we are talking about, treating everybody the same in that way. So the obvious thing comes up: What about all these different jurisdictions? We hear a lot about 9,600 taxing jurisdictions, and I live in Maryville, TN. So the city might have a sales tax and the State might have a sales tax and they might be different than what the next city is. So my question to the Senator from North Dakota is--what this law does is it streamlines these 9,600 jurisdictions. It simplifies the whole process to make it easier for out-of-State sellers. It takes advantage of the technology of the Internet so there could be a single tax return for each State, a single audit for each State, and States often work together with audits and there can only be one audit per year; in other words, it reduces this burden. Of course, if an entity is in Kansas and they are selling in Tennessee, they may be subject to an audit and they file a report every year electronically. But, according to this, there can only be one a year. What if we didn't pass this law? Let's say I am an enterprising Governor of Tennessee, which I once was, and I say, the Senate can't get anything done. They can't even agree when they have 75 people on both sides of the aisle who already have voted 3 times for the bill. So I have given up on them. So I am going back to the Supreme Court 20 years later, after Senator Heitkamp wins as tax collector for North Dakota, and I am going to say, back then, 20 years ago, we didn't know anything about the Internet and this case came to the Supreme Court and the Court said it is too much of a burden on interstate commerce for you to require out-of-State sellers with no physical presence in the State to do the same thing you already require your instate sellers to do on taxes that are already owed--taxes that are already owed. I am going to go back to the Court and say things have changed. Times are different. I can take my computer out and I can put in my ZIP Code and type in ``Williams-Sonoma,'' figure out the sales tax I owe when I buy my ice cream freezer online, and they can collect it and send it to the State of Tennessee. So it is not any sort of burden on interstate commerce. It is my right as a sovereign State to make everybody who wants to sell online or by catalog into the State of Tennessee--I am going after them. I am going after them if they don't collect the tax. Then, my friends in Mississippi see me do that and they do it too and then Kentucky does it and then the next State does it and then all 9,600 taxing jurisdictions go after this single remote seller. They might come back to the Senate and say: Why didn't you guys do your job a few years ago? Why didn't you simplify this system? Why didn't you create something that was easy, which limited our liability, which made the States provide us with the software that makes this work, which limited the audits to one a year, which limited the tax to one per State? Why didn't you make it so even a smaller seller--99 percent of the Internet sellers are exempt from this act--a smaller seller wouldn't have to worry about it? So I ask the Senator from North Dakota if she would respond, given her 20, 30 years of experience in this whole issue, am I exaggerating? What would it be like if the State of Tennessee got tired of the Senate not being able to act after all this time and went back to the Supreme Court and won the case and Tennessee and North Dakota and all the other States started enforcing their laws against remote sellers?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for her knowledge and her contribution to the debate. Of course, what she is emphasizing is that if we do act, we simplify things for the small businessperson. For one thing, we exempt anyone whose revenues are less than $1 million. That, by some economists' studies, is 99 percent of all Internet sellers. If we don't act and a case is won in the Supreme Court today, that is different than 20 years ago. There is no $1 million exemption--there is no $1 million exemption--and there is exposure to 9,600 tax districts if they win that case. So the thing to think about is if we do our job, and the Supreme Court said 20 years ago we are the ones to do it--and 74 or 75 of us 3 times now have indicated we think we should through this 12-page bill, we will provide an exemption for virtually all Internet sellers, we will create rules that simplify, and we will give States the opportunity to do what States should have the opportunity to do. My heavens, I hear some people say--and I have said this on the floor-- Washington didn't trust the States to make these decisions about tax matters. Nobody in Tennessee trusts Washington to make decisions about tax matters. So what this bill does is say to the State of Tennessee or Delaware, it is your business; you decide it. If what you want to do is collect tax from some of the people who owe it and not all of the people who owe it-- States have the right to be right; States have the right to be wrong. That is what the 10th Amendment is about. In some States, they will use the money to pay teachers more for teaching well. In the State of Ohio they have already decided if this passes, they are going to lower the income tax. The Governor of Idaho said he already has his eye on a tax he would like to lower. If we can collect taxes from everybody who already owes them--and that is the important point to make. We are not talking about new taxes; we are talking about taxes people aren't paying that they owe. So why should I have to pay my tax, and if the Senator from Delaware is in the same similar situation, why should he not have to pay? So in each State, the same people ought to have to pay. Art Laffer, the distinguished economist who wrote a good column in the Wall Street Journal endorsing this idea of marketplace fairness, said the best tax, if there has to be a tax, is one that affects the largest number of people at the lowest possible rate. If we have a 10- percent sales tax in Tennessee and 25 percent of the people who buy things are not paying a tax they owe, they ought to be paying it. They ought to be paying it. If they all pay it, we can lower the rate for everybody. That is what--we are not deciding that here; we are just deciding the States could have the right to decide. But the important point of the Senator from North Dakota is that if we act, we are protecting the small seller by creating the $1 million exemption. We are protecting the small seller or any remote seller by saying you have a limited liability, a limited number of audits, a limited number of States to do it in, and if we don't act and the Supreme Court hears this case, Katy bar the door, and out-of-State sellers all over the world will be coming to the Congress and saying: Why didn't you do your job? So there is a good reason why we have a majority of Democrats who have voted three times to express their support for this bill and a majority of Republicans who have done the same. There is a good reason why leading observers across the country, from the chairman of the American Conservative Union and others who don't like to see States picking and choosing between winners and losers--there is a good reason all of those people support this. And there is a good reason it is an 11-page bill. It is a simple idea. We have sovereign States. States make their own tax laws. Unless States, by their tax laws, create an unconstitutional burden on an out- of-State seller, it is no business of ours. We should create the environment the court says to give them the freedom to make those decisions for themselves. Some may do it one way, some may do it another, but States have the right to be right, States have the right to be wrong, and we have the responsibility to recognize the constitutional framework of our country which was created by sovereign States. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senators from Illinois and Wyoming for their comments. Basically, the Senator from Illinois has said the bill is ready to be amended. It is here for that purpose. We encourage our colleagues to bring amendments if they have them. We could have started the amendments on Monday if the opponents had agreed to that. But we were forced, through Senate procedure, to go through Monday and Tuesday and most of today in order to deal with the filibuster. But we are about to be ready to vote on amendments. It was unfortunate; some people have said in a misleading way that this taxes the Internet. Of course, it does not. There is a Federal law against taxing the Internet. The Senator from Arkansas attempted to extend that ban on taxing the Internet for 10 years and one of the opponents to our legislation blocked that. He blocked even having a vote on that. That is unfortunate. It is ironic that the Senator from Montana would object to the fact that this is an 11-page bill. I don't want to relitigate some of the other bills we have passed around here, but there was a big hue and cry when Senators got a 2,700-page bill that dealt with health care and it was complicated and hard to read. We have gone in a different direction. We have an 11-page bill that is the result of work that has gone on since 2001 by the Senator from Wyoming, that was introduced in 2011 in substantially this form, on which there was a full hearing in the Commerce Committee in 2012 and a partial hearing in the Finance Committee in 2012. It has been introduced with exactly these 11 pages since February of this year. So everybody can read it. It is not complicated. It is plain and simple. It is about States rights. I think it is good that we have an uncomplicated 11-page bill we all can read and we have had plenty of time to read it. Of course, we would have preferred to have it reported by the Finance Committee, but they would not report it. So the only choice we had was to bring it to the floor. Now it is open for amendment so I hope we will do that. The only other point is it was said there is no benefit to an out-of- State seller from, say, selling into Tennessee, if someone from Wyoming is selling into Tennessee. Of course there is a benefit. We are buying that business's goods. All we want to be able to do is to have the right to say: Mr. Wyoming, if you want to sell into Tennessee, you are going to play by the same rules the Tennessee businesses have to play by. That is all we want to do. The equal protection clause of the Constitution guarantees we cannot do anything worse to you. But if you want to sell to us, you do what we do. We think that is fair and we think that not allowing States to consider that is forcing States to play ``Mother May I'' with Members of Congress about matters which should be within their own sovereign jurisdiction and keeping States from doing what they think is fair. I thank Senators Durbin and Enzi for their leadership.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I have enjoyed the discussion on the Marketplace Fairness Act. It is nice to have a good debate and I am looking forward to voting on amendments that are here. I wish to address two or three points that have been made during the debate. The first is about what we call here regular order. What we mean by that is that the bill was introduced, it goes to a committee, and the committee reports it to the floor, and we bring it up on the floor, and we have a debate and then we vote on it. We want to see more of that around here. Well, the problem with this bill is that the Finance Committee would not act on it. Let's be straightforward about it. This bill has been around a long time. The Finance Committee chairman is the only one who can schedule a hearing and cause it to be acted on. He did not want to do that, despite the fact that we asked him to do it. So as a result, the majority leader used a procedure that brings the bill to the floor. To underscore that, let me ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a timeline for the Marketplace Fairness Act. It details the steps we have taken since 2001.

Mr. ALEXANDER. To summarize some of these steps, this began in the 107th Congress in 2001. Now Senator Enzi started even before that, I think, with Senator Dorgan. They introduced the Internet Tax Moratorium and Equity Act in 2000 and 2001. Then in 2003, the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Act was introduced by Senator Enzi. That is 10 years ago. Then again in 2005 and 2006 Senator Enzi and Senator Dorgan. Then again in 2007 and 2008, Senator Enzi. In the 111th Congress no bill was introduced. But now we are getting to a little more recent history. Last Congress, 2011 and 2012, Senator Durbin introduced the Main Street Fairness Act. Senator Enzi joined him in that. It was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. So for all of that time, the Finance Committee has had an opportunity to work on this legislation in the way they thought it should be. There were hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee in August of 2012 on essentially the same 11-page bill that has been introduced here today and that we are acting on. There was a partial hearing in the Senate Finance Committee during that year. But that was all. Then, in this year, in February, on Valentine's Day, Senator Enzi introduced the Marketplace Fairness Act we are debating here, this 11-page bill. There was a letter from 16 Senators, Republicans and Democrats, asking the Finance Committee to hold a hearing and to deal with it. But it has not. I respect the decision of the chairman to be opposed to the bill and not to hold a hearing and not to report the bill to the floor. But if he does that, then I would suggest he should respect the right of the majority leader to bring the bill to the floor and allow the Senate to debate it. As far as the regular order goes, a week should be long enough to consider this bill, which has been in one form or another around since 2001. We could have begun debating amendments on Monday. That is when the bill came to the floor. But the opponents filibustered it. This was not a Republican or a Democratic filibuster, it was both sides, from opponents. And what that deprived us of was an opportunity to vote and debate amendments on Monday and Tuesday. Then we had another vote. So we have now had three votes, one during the budget session, one on cloture on the motion to proceed, and then one on the motion to proceed itself. We have gotten 74, 75 votes each time. It is a majority of the Democratic Senators, it is a majority of the Republican Senators. This does not happen all the time, that we have such strong majorities on each side of the aisle, saying in three successive votes of 74 and 75 votes: We favor an important piece of legislation. I would hope the better course would be to come to some agreement that we can take the amendments we have here from Democrats and from Republicans, bring them up, table them, vote on them, debate them, and act on this and bring this to a conclusion this week. Then there is substantial support in the House of Representatives for this. The bill could then go to the House. The House could do whatever the House wishes. There could be a conference and we could get a result. Every attempt has been made by the sponsors of this legislation since 2001 to bring this through the regular order, which means take it through the committee. The opponents of the idea have chosen first in the Finance Committee to not allow there to be a markup of the bill, and then on the floor to not allow us to debate amendments. For example, some people say this legislation taxes the Internet. Of course, that is 100 percent wrong, because there is a Federal law banning State taxation of the Internet. Senator Pryor of Arkansas sought to extend that ban for 10 more years today. The opponents of the bill objected even to a vote on taxing the Internet. This is very disappointing. That is the information about the timeline I wanted to put in. Here is some more information that I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. ALEXANDER. These are letters from Senators to the leaders of the Finance Committee. The first letter is dated January 31, 2012, last year, at the beginning of the year. It was from five Democrats and five Republicans who introduced the Marketplace Fairness Act. It asks for a hearing, asks for the committee to act. That is the first letter. The next letter came this year, on February 14, from 16 Senators, both parties, to the Finance Committee, asking the Finance Committee to act on the Marketplace Fairness Act. Then there is a letter to the leaders of the Finance Committee from the National Governors Association, signed by the Democratic Governor of Washington and the Republican Governor of Tennessee, asking the Finance Committee, on behalf of the States, to consider this legislation and act on it. The Finance Committee elected not to do that. This information will be part of the Record. Finally, there is also a letter dated April 22 of this year from the National Governors Association urging Senators Reid and McConnell to pass this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Now, finally, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the names of the Governors and former Governors who support this legislation.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I do that with a little bit of obvious bias as a former Governor. I think it is important that the country know what the Governors think, because the legislation we are talking about today is a States rights bill. It is an 11-page bill. It is a very simple, straightforward bill. It simply says that Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, New Jersey, any State, has the right to decide for itself whether it wants to collect taxes that are already owed from some of the people who owe the taxes or all of the people who owe the taxes. That is it. That is it. That is all it does. The Governors who supported it are the Governor of Alabama, Virginia, New Jersey, South Carolina, Nevada, Iowa, South Dakota, Maine, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Tennessee, Michigan, Governor Otter of Idaho, Arizona, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Hawaii. I just read a bunch of Republican Governors. Now I am into the Democrats: Kentucky, Hawaii, Arkansas, California, Minnesota, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, Missouri, Massachusetts, Illinois and West Virginia. The former Governors include Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, and the former Democratic Governor of Washington. Here we have a bill on the floor that we have voted on three times already that has a majority of the Democratic Senators and a majority of the Republican Senators, and 75 votes three times--74 one time, 75 twice. The bill also has the support of a long list of Republican Governors--actually more Republican than Democratic Governors. Yet we have got some people in Washington who say, we do not trust the States to make these decisions. I wonder if these people have ever read the Constitution of the United States? I wonder if they know what the 10th Amendment says? This was a very important part of the creation of this country. Sovereign States had reserved to them their powers. They didn't expect to come to Washington and play ``Mother May I'' to a bunch of Senators and Congressmen who fly here on airplanes and think they are smarter than they were when they left Nashville, Memphis or wherever their hometown is. The purpose of this bill is to leave within the States the responsibility for making decisions. Some people up here think they know best. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Tennessee doesn't have an income tax. I would like for every State not to have an income tax, but I am not going to impose that from Washington just because I am a Senator. Tennessee has a right-to-work law. I would like for every State to have a right-to-work law, but I am not going to impose that from Washington. States have the right to be right, States have the right to be wrong, and Washington has no business telling sovereign States what its tax structure ought to be. Washington certainly has no business standing in the way of States stopping discrimination against taxpayers and businesses because that is exactly what we are doing if we don't act. We are perpetuating discrimination. Most conservatives I know don't like picking and choosing between winners and losers. They don't like treating one taxpayer one way and one in a similar situation another way, one business one way and another one another way. That is exactly what we are doing if we don't act. We are discriminating against the shoestore in Wyoming, against the boot store in Nashville, and against the small store in Maryville, TN. We are saying collect the tax when you sell something, but if your competitor from outside your State sells it, he or she does not have to. That is discrimination. That is why the leading conservatives such as the chairman of the American Conservative Union, William Buckley, before he died; and Art Laffer, the economist who helped President Reagan develop his ideas; and the Governors such as Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Bill Haslam, that is why these conservatives say they support the bill. We are not even deciding whether States will collect taxes from out- of-State sellers. We are just saying States have the right to do it. Of course they have the right to do it. That is why I am including this list of Governors. I think it is part of our job as Senators to respect the sovereign States from where we come, to respect the rights of the States to not think that just because we are in Washington we know better. Most Tennesseans don't like that. I know when I was Governor nothing used to make me madder than a bunch of legislators coming up with some bright idea in Washington, passing it, turning it into a law, holding a press conference, taking the credit for it, and then sending the bill to me. The next thing you know they would be home making a speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner or Jefferson Day Dinner, if they were a Democrat, about local control. Well, it is about local control. The idea that people in Washington would say we don't trust the States to make decisions about how to spend money, look at our record. We are running up trillion-dollar deficits every year, borrowing 26 cents out of every $1 we spend. I come from a State that has no State debt on roads. It has to balance the budget every year. It has a AAA bond rating. I would trust Governor Haslam, Lieutenant Governor Ramsey, the Speaker of the House, and the Republican legislature a lot more than I do the Senate and Congress to make decisions about tax dollars. I think I know pretty well what they will do if they have power to do it. I suspect they will say they are not going to pick and choose winners and losers. I know they are going to say that because the Governor and Lieutenant Governor told me. I expect what they will say is this will bring in more revenue so we will lower our tax rate because we will start collecting money from all the people who owe it instead of some of the people who owe it. It is correct that some Governors have already said that. We were told today that in Ohio they have already said if this bill passes, they will collect money from everybody who owes it and then they will lower their income taxes. Art Laffer said in his column in the Wall Street Journal: That is precisely what we ought to do to stimulate growth. He said: If we are going to have a tax, the best tax, said Mr. Laffer, is a tax that covers the largest number of people at the lowest possible rate. If that is the case, what we are perpetuating within action is the worst kind of tax, which is the tax that States are allowed to tax a smaller range of people at a higher rate. This permits them to tax all the people who are in a similarly situated place at a lower rate, if that is what they choose to do. The arrogance of those in Washington who would say they don't trust the States to make those decisions, they need to go back to seventh grade, read the U.S. Constitution and learn a little American history about where this country came from. I am very proud of this Senate for, on this important issue led by Senator Durbin and Senator Enzi, coming up with 75 and 74 votes 3 consecutive times to say we believe in a two-word principle on this 11- page bill, States rights or 10th Amendment, that we will recognize the power of States to make their own decisions. If we don't act, all these claims about what happened to the 9,600 jurisdictions will come true. Some Governor--I know I would do it if I were still there--the Senate didn't act on this, the Congress didn't act, I would go right back to the Supreme Court. I would bet that 20 years after the Quill case that Senator Heitkamp brought, back before there was an Internet, when the Court then said that requiring out-of- State sellers to collect the tax was burdensome, they would look at the Internet. Those Justices know they can find out the weather in their hometowns by putting in the ZIP Code and putting in the name of the town. They know that an out-of-State seller could figure out the sales tax from the ZIP Code of the buyer. They know that. I will predict that they would hold it is not an undue burden, and then all the out-of-State sellers really would have 9,600 jurisdictions to deal with. We are simplifying, and we are creating something that will work. We are following a process that is well tried. There are a great many out-of-State catalog sellers and online sellers that today do exactly what the instate sellers do. They collect the sales tax. They do it through the ZIP Code over the Internet. We are saying everybody should do that except those who sell less than $1 million a year. They don't have to do anything under this law. According to many economists, that takes 99 percent of the online sellers out of the effect of this bill. We have tried to bring this through regular order. We are down here trying right now. We have received substantial support. There have been hearings. There has been a lot of work in the House, and there is broad support from the Governors. I am hopeful we will move forward tomorrow, finish this legislation, send it to the House, and take a step toward recognizing the Constitutional framework of our country by honoring the sovereign States rights to make decisions for themselves and stopping this attitude of requiring Governors and legislators to come to Washington and play ``Mother May I'' with responsibilities that ought to be clearly the responsibility of States. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wonder if I could, through the Chair, pose another question to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. ALEXANDER. If I am not mistaken, there is a Federal moratorium on Internet taxes; that is, there is a Federal temporary ban on State taxes on access to the Internet. Am I not correct that if the Marketplace Fairness Act passes, that ban will still be there? In other words, today there is a Federal ban on Internet taxes, and after this law passes there will continue to be a ban on Internet taxes? And this is not about Internet taxes, it is about State sales and use taxes that are already owed but in some cases are not collected.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the Senator alluded to this in his remarks, and we both heard Senator Heitkamp from North Dakota. It is pretty remarkable that a Senator, in her first 3 months, would find herself in the middle of a debate about a problem she created 20 years ago in North Dakota. She brought this case that created this situation. But let me ask the Senator from Illinois what he envisions will happen if we do not act. If I am not mistaken, under the arrangements we now have today, if a big Internet seller in Illinois--someone who sells more than $1 million a year--and as I understand it, 99 percent of Internet sellers are exempt from this, but let's say you are in that 1 percent and you want to sell in Tennessee--your responsibility is to file one return in Tennessee, and you are subject to one audit, period. And if you sell in another State, the same thing. So you might be subject to filing one report and one audit in all the States, and many of the States are part of what is called a streamline structure where they work together, so they audit together. And audits don't occur every year. But there are 9,600 taxing jurisdictions in the United States. So what we have done or propose to do is simplify this greatly so that if you are an Internet seller, if you sell online or by catalog from Illinois to Tennessee, you have a very small number of reports you need to fill out, a very small number of audits to which you might be subjected. And your liability is very limited for making a mistake because the State has to provide the software, and if the software doesn't work, that is the State's fault and not yours. But what would happen if we didn't act, I would ask the Senator from Illinois? What if we did not act to simplify this system, as the Supreme Court said 20 years ago is our responsibility?